Groundwaters intake impact on the floodplain forests in the river Don basin

The Don basin occupies the central part within the territories of forest-steppe and steppe zones of Russian Plain. Seversky Donets is the largest Don's tributary which undergone considerable anthropogenic regulation. In Seversky Donets valley the intensive use of numerous water intake constructions for the needs of the densely populated and industrial region of Donbass on the territory of Russia and Ukraine resulted in the formation of the cones of depression in floodplain terraces. Further to the south, the share of floodplain forests in the total area is increasing, and in steppe zone they prevail. Their protective and environment creating functions are highly valued on the scale of the categories of importance in the biological frame of the national agoforest landscapes. The dynamic levels decrease in the water intakes caused the flood-plain lakes and swamps drying up as well as the soil ground drainage, the decrease of flood-plain biogeocoenoses sustainability and productivity, and dramatic floodplain forests drying up. Numerous observations of the reformations of floodplain forest ecosystems under anthropogenically changed conditions enabled us to reveal basic laws and regularities of the interactions between hydrogeological and alluvial processes and dynamic changes of the forest growth conditions as well as the state and productivity of forest ecosystems.